


Making it Work

by Elthadriel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 16:36:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elthadriel/pseuds/Elthadriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael, Lucifer and Adam trying to get through life after the cage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making it Work

**Author's Note:**

> No one will ever be able to convince me that Michael, Lucifer and Adam didn't just snuggle in the cage.
> 
> Unbeta'd because none of my friends are in the fandom so...

Lucifer was still up when Adam got home, despite it being nearly four in the morning. This wasn’t necessarily unusual, they all kept odd hours, but instead of being enthralled by crap TV, or reading whatever Adam had got them from the library that week, he sat at the kitchen table in the dark, an icepack pressed against his forehead. This wasn’t completely unique either but it had been a while and Adam had let himself hope.

“Hey,” Adam whispered, placing his hands on the back of Lucifer’s neck, knowing they were still cold from the outside air, “Have you told Michael to take his medication?”

He spoke in clumsy German, as he always did when he was in the house. Getting them out of the cage had cost his angel’s a lot and while their personal memories seemed fine, much of their knowledge had been lost, their new, semi-human brains being unable to cope. Lucifer’s ability to speak English was one of the things that had been sacrificed so Michael and Lucifer had set about teaching Adam German, one of the languages they still had in common, so they could all communicate.

“What do you think? He won’t, he says it makes his head cloudy.” Lucifer murmured, sighing as Adam rubs small circles into his neck though whether from the massage itself or his cool skin Adam couldn’t be sure.

Michael had kept more of his abilities than Lucifer, he was stronger, could still use his grace though it drained him greatly and remembered far more than his brother but Adam was sure Lucifer had gotten the better deal. In return for this Michael suffered terrible migraines much of the time and was nearly always exhausted. 

Neither of the angels would say why Michael had faired so badly but Adam knew it was because Michael had had to protect him while they climbed out.

“I’ll see what I can do. Take some painkillers and see if that helps.” Excluding Michael’s medication it was an unwritten rule the angels wouldn’t take anything without Adam’s permission. Michael’s was the exception only because he hated so much there was no chance of him overdosing or taking it when it wasn’t needed and he didn’t want to give Michael any more excuses for not taking it.

He could normally only convince Michael when what was left of Lucifer’s telepathy meant he was involuntarily picking up on Michael’s pain, as was the case now.

Adam really wanted to just shower and go to bed. It had been a long day with stupid customers and the night shift always took a lot out of him. He padded through to the bedroom in the dark, light only made Michael’s headaches worse so their small house was in a near constant state of darkness unless light was absolutely necessary.

He could just make out the shape of Michael curled up in the bed, and while he didn’t move and the only sound was his breathing, Adam’s certain he’s awake.

Adam undressed quickly, pulling on a pair of sweats before climbing into the bed behind him, noting the untouched glass of water sitting on the beside-table next to his medication.

“I’m sorry,” Michael said without prompting, he knew that Lucifer would have told Adam.

“Why won’t you take them Mike? They’ll help.” Adam wrapped himself around Michael, ignoring the uncomfortable feel of his sweat covered skin.

“They make it hard to think. I don’t like not being able to… I worry that I’ll never be able to remember. I’m scared,” Michael admitted, as though it were news to Adam. They’d had this conversation many times. Michael would put off taking them as much as he could; preferring the migraines and the weariness to the way the meds slowed his mind and made it difficult to remember things. Adam normally allowed this, he didn’t like Michael stammering and confused either, but when it started to affect Lucifer he felt he needed to step in.

“I know, Michael, but Lucifer is picking them up off you, please, for his sake. You can go straight to sleep after. I’ll read to you until you do.” Michael’s headaches made reading impossible and the medication made his mind so cloudy it wasn’t worth the trouble.

Michael didn’t say anything and Adam recognised it as compliance. He helped Michael sit up; wincing at Michael’s whimpers as moving only made his head hurt worse. 

Michael took the tablets without further complaint though he did look more miserable than normal before carefully nuzzling into Adam’s side.

“What do you want to me to read?” Adam inquired, running his fingers through Michael’s hair, trying to sooth his anxiety.

“What’s Lucifer reading just now?” Surprisingly Michael wasn’t as taken with books Lucifer was, he loved poetry, and loved the beauty the language could contained but he had little time for stories. 

“Some Swedish crime novel. I have an English translation as well?” Reading was one of the few times Adam spoke English in the house; he had decided early that it wasn’t fair to speak English when Lucifer was having such difficulty relearning the language. Adam’s reading in

German was still too clumsy however, and Lucifer read in such a verity of languages it had been decided it was easier if Adam just grabbed English copied too when he could.

Michael made a face but nodded his agreement. He didn’t like Lucifer’s pulp fiction but he enjoyed having something to talk to his brother about so he often put up with it. Adam was mostly indifferent, like Michael he wasn’t that found of fiction anymore; his reality had been adventurous enough but now it had calmed down he intended to cling to it.

He read softy, smiling fondly as Michael melted against him, relaxing more and more as his medication kicked in. Without the pain he fell asleep soon after and didn’t even wake when Adam set down the book and shifted him so he could lie down against him.

\---

Lucifer had joined them at some point in the night, some point after Michael’s meds had started to work, as Adam woke to find himself being snuggled from both sides. Michael and Lucifer got plenty of time with each other when he was at work so when he was back they liked to trap him between them. Adam certainly wasn’t going to complain. Both the angels were still asleep and Adam took a moment to look over them. Lucifer, who despite being the more expressive of the pair was also still clinging to his scene of pride so made sure he was presented as majestically as possible whenever he could. It was therefore nice to see him lose some of his composure while a slept and while he would never say it to Lucifer’s face, the trickle of drool at the side of his mouth was adorable.

Michael normally had a little furrow in his brow even when sleeping but his medication tended to make his make his face lax. While Adam wanted to glad that it meant Michael wasn’t in pain it was hard when he knew how miserable it made him.

He caressed Michael’s check, hoping, likely fruitlessly, that they could come up with someway to help him soon.

Realising his alarm was about to go off, a reminder that he couldn’t lounge around in bed with them but had to get to work, he leant across Lucifer and turned it off before it could wake either of them. He had offered to stay in a different room when he had to set an alarm, for Michael’s sake if nothing else, but the angels wouldn’t allow it.

Adam managed, with some difficulty, to unattach himself from both angels and escape the bed without waking either of them. He had become an expert at finding his clothes in the dark and made it to the bathroom and into the shower without incident.

A quick shower later and he headed to the kitchen to grab a quick breakfast before he left for work.

He found Michael, bundled in blanket from the bed, balanced on one of the chairs, staring into nothing.

“Michael, what are you doing up? Where’s Lucifer?” When Michael was on his meds, Adam was reduced to speaking to him like a child; another reason the angel hated them so much.

“Still in bed,” Michael mumbled, blinking a lot as he tired to focus on Adam.

“You should go back.”

Michael shook his head but burrowed further into the blankets. He frowned at the table and opened and closed his mouth a couple of times as Adam turned the kettle and started making them tea. He knew drawing attention to Michael’s inability to form words would only make it worse.

“Lucifer was moving around too much.” Michael finally supplied. Lucifer did have a tendency to be very twitchy when he slept if he didn’t have someone to cling to. 

Adam set some herbal tea down in front of Michael, who took it wordlessly and wrapped his hands around the mug, inhaling the vapour. Adam himself couldn’t stand herbal tea but the caffeine messed with Michael, and Lucifer complained about how bitter it was. So Adam was forced to buy herbal tea with his own grey even though it made him feel slightly dirty; his mother had been something of a tea snob.

“Do you want anything to eat?” Adam asked as he pulled out a cereal bar for himself.

Michael shook his head, “I’m not hungry.”

“Did you have dinner last night?”

Michael stared at his tea for an awkwardly long moment, his brow creased in frustration.

“I don’t remember,” He admitted at last, sounding pained to admit it.

“It’s okay, I’ll check.” Adam moved to look in the small diary they kept by the phone with random notes to each other scrawled across the pages. A quick check showed that Lucifer had noted Michael had slept through lunch yesterday and had refused dinner, Lucifer’s own building headache making him too frustrated to push it.

“What if I D… D… Dom… Don’t get better?” Michael whispered softly, too soon apparently, as he struggled midsentence and it took him a few attempts to get the word out.

“You will.” Adam insisted but continued off Michael’s pleading look, “But, if you don’t, then we’ll manage as we always have. You got Luce and me out of the cage, we can handle this; I promise.”

“That’s a ch… Che… Ca… That’s not an answer.” Michael glared at his tea as if it personally had offended him when he had to rearrange his sentence when he couldn’t remember the word. 

“Try not to worry about it Mike, you’ll get better. You’ve been having more good days recently.” Adam stroked Michael’s hair in a clumsy form of comfort before moving away.

“I have to go to work; go talk to Lucifer if you’re still worried. I’ll see you tonight.” Adam hated to leave Michael like this but it would be worse for all of them if he lost his job.

“Goodbye, Adam,” Michael said without looking up.

With a last look at the fallen angel Adam went back through to the bedroom.

“Luce,” He shook Lucifer gently until the angel blinked awake, staring groggily up at Adam. “I’m going to work. Michael’s in a weird mood and I can’t convince him to come back to bed. He hasn’t eaten anything since breakfast yesterday so try and get some food in him. Okay?” 

“Hmm?” Lucifer agreed, even as he turned over to try and go back to sleep.

“Lucifer! Say it back to me.” Adam pulled the covers clean off him, grinning as Lucifer curled into a ball to fight the cold.

“You are the breadwinner, Michael’s weird, and Michael is attempting to drop a dress size.” Lucifer muttered, glaring at Adam from under his arm, “Now can I have the blanket back?”

“No, it’s time for you to get up anyway.” Adam said with a grin, heading towards the door, “Take care, Lucifer.”   
He thought about shouting goodbye to Michael but in his current state it wouldn’t do any good. With a sigh he left the house and headed to work.

\---

 

“Where’s Michael?” Adam took the time to press a kiss to the top of Lucifer’s head as he passed desperate to get out of his ill fitting work clothes.

“He’s in the shower. He threw up for most of the morning but we watched some television and argued about what to make for lunch. His medication wore off a couple of hours ago but he’s still feeling fine.” Throwing up was another side effect of his medication, though, to be fair, Michael was often sick without it too.

“What did you have for lunch?” Adam called from the bedroom, taking the opportunity to be loud when he could.

“Egg mayonnaise toasties” Lucifer said with a hint of smugness which caused Adam to grin. They were Lucifer’s favourite and it also suggested Michael really was having a good day if Lucifer didn’t feel bad about winning the argument. The pair had found some middle ground while still in the cage but they got on even better now they were out. Michael’s illness seemed to spark a protective streak in Lucifer and with him leading the way the brothers had forgiven one another. The two still bickered like brothers though. 

Adam couldn’t find the shirt he was looking for and wondered which one of them had stolen it this time. The angels were big on shared clothing and had dragged Adam into this convention willing or not. It wasn’t so much he minded, it was nice seeing the pair bundled in a miss-match of clothing, but it could be frustrating at time; he really liked that shirt. He settled for another one instead and went back to join Lucifer on the couch, throwing him a look, which Lucifer pointedly ignored, when he saw what they were watching. Of all the shows they could have become addicted to, it would be Desperate Housewives. At least Lucifer was content with subs and not some terrible dub.

“Even I’ve seen this one before, you must have.” Adam complained at last. 

Lucifer frowned at him.

“But Michael hasn’t and I said I would tell him what happened. I don’t remember it well enough so I’m watching it again.”

Adam nodded. That was reasonable he guessed.

Hand on a second.

“Michael has seen this one! It’s the one where that woman dies. You two argued for days if she deserved it or not.” Adam exclaimed and following Lucifer’s smirk lunged at him and attempted to wrestle the controller off him.

Adam had the advantage of being younger and more used to a human body but Lucifer had thousands of years of experience and fought dirty. 

By the time the advert break started Lucifer was sitting on top of Adam looking very smug.

“You’re getting fat.” Adam grumbled from under Lucifer, squirming to try and get comfortable; or at least as comfortable as he could with 

Satan sitting on top of him. 

Lucifer’s response was to bounce on top of him, causing Adam to groan. 

The bathroom door opened.

“Michael! You’re brother is bu-” Adam yelled, Lucifer cutting him off by slamming his hands over his mouth.

Michael appeared in the doorway frowning at the pair of them. Somehow, with only a towel around his waste, skin slightly pink from the hot water and hair sticking up in bizarre directions, he still managed to look slightly regal.

“Lucifer, we have a sacred duty to protect humanity. That doesn’t involve sitting on top of them.” He waited long enough for Lucifer to roll his eyes, “And if you insist on doing it anyway, you should at least do it properly and tickle them too.”

“Lucifer, don’t you even-” Adam squealed before dissolving into uncontrollable laughter as Lucifer’s hands jabbed at his sides.

By the time Michael returned, fully dressed, Lucifer had grown bored and had gone back to his show and Adam was sulking at the other end of the sofa.

“You look good.” Adam commented, nodding at Michael who smiled slightly in return. It was true; Adam always forgot how handsome Michael was and how when he wasn’t curled up in pain he radiated confidence.

“I feel well. I apologise for the inconvenience I’ve caused.” Michael said as he sat down.

Adam had to stop Lucifer from throwing a pillow at him; Michael always apologised and Lucifer was more than a little fed up with it.

“It’s not an inconvenience, Mike.” He assured him, “Anything the pair of you want to do this afternoon?”

“Could we go to the park?” Mike’s eyes lit up ever so slightly at the idea and Lucifer sat up a little straighter next to him. Neither of them got out enough; Michael because of his headaches and Lucifer because, despite denying it every time Adam tried to bring it up, was nervous about going out on his own. Combined with Adam’s work it meant neither of them regularly got further than sitting on the front step.

“Yeah, we can go to the park.”

“We should get bread.” Lucifer said firmly. 

Adam bit back a laugh. There was something oddly charming about the Devil and the Prince of Heaven feeding bread to ducks. He had considered getting them all a pet; something small like a guinea pig or rabbit, for them to dote on; maybe next time her got paid.

“We should get bread.” Adam agreed.

Both angels hurried off to get their shoes and Adam couldn’t help but wonder how this had become is life.

He knew one good day didn’t mean anything, that tomorrow Michael would be back to the normal routine of headaches, not taking his medication and an hour ever so often when the pain was bearable enough for him to snuggle on the couch with Lucifer, mouth slightly open as the pair were mesmerised by whatever crap was on at the time.

It wasn’t prefect, but Adam wouldn’t give it up for the world.


End file.
